Vesta was as enthusiastic over it as a child, all eagerness to begin, seeing in the change a promise of the peace for which she had so ardently longed. She appeared to have come suddenly from under a cloud of oppression and to sparkle in the sun of this new hope. It was only when they came to parting at the porch that the ghost of her old trouble came to take its place at her side again. "Has she cut the fence lately over there, Duke?" she asked. "Not since I caught her at it. I don't think she'll do it again." "Did she promise you she wouldn't cut it, Duke?" She did not look at him as she spoke, but stood with her face averted, as if she would avoid prying into his secret too directly. Her voice was low, a note of weary sadness in it that seemed a confession of the uselessness of turning her back upon the strife that she would forget. "No, she didn't promise." "If she doesn't cut the fence she'll plan to hurt me in some other way. It isn't in her to be honest; she couldn't be honest if she tried." "I don't like to condemn anybody without a trial, Vesta. Maybe she's changed." "You can't change a rattlesnake. You seem to forget that she's a Kerr." "Even at that, she might be different from the rest." "She never has been. You've had a taste of the Kerr methods, but you're not satisfied yet that they're absolutely base and dishonorable in every thought and deed. You'll find it out to your cost, Duke, if you let that girl lead you. She's a will-o'-the-wisp sent to lure you from the trail." Lambert laughed a bit foolishly, as a man does when the intuition of a woman uncovers the thing that he prided himself was so skilfully concealed that mortal eyes could not find it. Vesta was reading through him like a piece of greased parchment before a lamp. "I guess it will all come out right," he said weakly. "You'll meet Kerr one of these days with your old score between you, and he'll kill you or you'll kill him. She knows it as well as I do. Do you suppose she can be sincere with you and keep this thing covered up in her heart? You seem to have forgotten what she remembers and plots on every minute of her life." "I don't think she knows anything about what happened to me that night, Vesta." "She knows all about it," said Vesta coldly. "I don't know her very well, of course; I've only passed a few words with her," he excused. "And a few notes hung on the fence!" she said, not able to hide her scorn. "She's gone away laughing at you every time." "I thought maybe peace and quiet could be established through her if she could be made to see things in a civilized way." Vesta made no rejoinder at once. She put her foot on the step as if to leave him, withdrew it, faced him gravely. "It's nothing to me, Duke, only I don't want to see her lead you into another fire. Keep your eyes open and your hand close to your gun when you're visiting with her."